"Hermione! Hurry up, or we'll be late for Defence Against the Dark Arts!" Harry hollered up the stairs that led to the girls' dormitories.
"I've just received an owl from my parents, I'll catch up!" Hermione shouted back.
Hermione turned back to the white envelope she held in her hands and ripped it open, wondering what news the letter would bring.
Seconds later, the white envelope fluttered lifelessly to the ground. Her eyes scanned through the message once, twice, three times, before crumpling it into an irregular sphere. Hermione went to lessons with the scrap of paper clutched tightly in her right fist. The smile that had previously adorned her face had disappeared leaving behind an expression of pure confusion.
She sat through Defence Against the Dark Arts silently, not even raising her hand to answer any questions. She stared at the crumpled letter that was in her hand, nearly forgetting to make notes. So she sat unmoving as the triple period dragged on, and, afterwards, she made her way painstakingly slowly to Potions. Harry looked at her with worry showing clearly in his eyes, but she remained silent. Ron was blissfully ignorant, as usual, and was complaining about having to take Potions to become an Auror.
"Such a load of rubbish! I mean, why would we even need Potions?" He continued ranting until they reached the classroom.
Hermione could not continue, she needed fresh air... she needed time to think.
"I can't do this." She said, exasperated.
She turned around and walked away, ignoring the shouts of concern from her two best friends and the stares of surprise she received from other students. She had just managed to round the corner when she literally walked into Professor Snape. There was a smirk in his face, betraying his amusement at her expense.
"And where do you think you are going, Miss Granger?" Snape sneered.
She looked up at him in fear.
"I-I was j-just going t-to the b-bathroom." She stuttered.
"I am disinclined to believe you, Miss Granger." He said bluntly. "The nearest bathroom is in the other direction. I do not allow my students to skip class without permission from their head of house or the headmaster. Since you clearly have neither, then you will turn around and go straight to the classroom." He said, towering above her. "NOW!"
Hermione jumped and walked quickly to the classroom and sat down next to Ron. Harry was sitting next to Neville today. Hermione tried to concentrate as she prepared the ingredients, but, one hour into the lesson, disaster struck. Her potion was—
"Green, Miss Granger. What colour is it supposed to be?" Snape sneered.
It was blatantly obvious he was enjoying this, and so were the Slytherins. They were all sniggering behind their head of house's back. Ron just stared at Hermione as though she had grown an extra head.
"Blue, Professor."
"And do you know what you did wrong?"
He just had to rub it in. Hermione's right hand was shaking uncontrollably now. Her head was bowed down, so that her hair made a curtain around her face to shield her embarrassment. She stared at the knife in her trembling hand, willing her hand to be still.
"Ignoring a teacher, Miss Granger? That will be twenty points from Gryffindor."
"I don't know." She said quietly.
"What did you say?" Snape said, surprised.
Even the Slytherins had stopped their sniggering for a moment.
"I don't know what I did wrong." Hermione said, loudly this time.
Whispers echoed throughout the room, and the Slytherins burst into howling laughter. Even the corner of Snape's mouth twitched slightly in his first victory over Hermione Granger in all the seven years he had taught her.
"Well, the Gryffindor Know-it-all appears to have lost her touch. Even Longbottom has managed to get a turquoise colour."
Hermione winced.
"Such a disappointment our Head Girl is. But, you have another half an hour to make a second attempt at the potion, and if it is anything less than perfect, you will lose another fifty points for Gryffindor."
Snape strode to the front of the room and, when he saw that she was still staring blankly at her knife, he sneered at her.
"You had better start, Miss Granger, the clock's ticking. Silence in the classroom!" He said carelessly to the Slytherins, who continued laughing in silent fits of giggles.
Hermione sprang into action, and managed to achieve an Acceptable for her potion, but true to his word, because it was less than perfect, fifty rubies tumbled out of the Gryffindor hourglass. Hermione could tell Harry was fuming at Snape, but, after six years, he had finally learnt to curse Snape silently rather than express his opinions out loud in Snape's territory. Ron too was turning beetroot red with anger. They had barely made it out of the classroom when both of them exploded at the same time:
"That filthy—"
"That was so unfair!"
"He had no right!"
"He had all the right." Hermione said in defeat, cutting off their ceaseless flow of insults and rage.
"But Hermione! Just because you got something wrong once, he shouldn't have treated you like that! I mean, you do seem to be a little off, but I'm sure you won't make any more mistakes."
How wrong Ron turned out to be. Hermione lost points in nearly every lesson they had that day. In Charms, instead of turning her pigeon golden, she set it on fire. In Transfiguration, she turned her table into a huge mass of brown fur instead of a bear. At least in Arithmancy she was granted peace- she was not asked to do any demonstrations. By the end of the day, Hermione was not only depressed, but also suicidal. She looked around her madly, as though everything was just a dream. And it felt like that. Her grasp on reality was slipping, and she was unable to even walk properly by dinner time.
She somehow managed to make her way to the Great Hall and sit herself down next to Harry without having too many accidents. She only crashed into two suits of armour and tripped over numerous times.
She could not touch the food on her plate. She felt sick just watching Ron eat. The scrap of paper was now sodden with sweat and ripped into pieces, but was still sitting snugly in her hand. Hermione just could not believe the contents of the letter, but it had stayed in her hand all day, so if the letter was real, it meant that everything else was not. It must be just a terrible dream.
It was a dream that just turned into a nightmare. A huge barn owl soared into the Great Hall, carrying a black envelope. Hermione watched as it made its way to her and stretched her hand high into the air above her head, taking the letter just as the barn owl flew by. It hooted and flew away, gliding back through the window it had flown in from.
It was just so surreal, and Hermione wanted to laugh. Why was everyone looking at her with expressions of horror? The room was starting to sway dangerously. Harry was standing to wrap a comforting arm around her shoulders, while Ron gaped at her with the contents of his mouth on full display. Hermione looked at the black envelope and ripped it open with so much force, the sound had echoed through the quiet hall.
Miss Hermione Granger,
We regret to inform you that your father was discovered in your home earlier this afternoon. The Dark Mark was found above the house.
We offer you our deepest condolences.
Signed:
S. Bones
This could not be real. Hermione refused to let it be.
"This isn't real. This isn't… It can't…" She muttered as she crumpled the letter and merged it with the remnants of her other one.
Hermione smiled and walked out of the Great Hall. This had to be some sort of dream potion. Somebody had decided to play a joke on her. That was all this was, a sick joke. However, her path to Gryffindor was blocked by a large bat. Or someone who resembled one anyway.
"Yes, Professor, what can I do for you?" Hermione said cheerfully.
"The headmaster wishes to speak to you."
Hermione nodded and followed Snape to Professor Dumbledore's office. Professor McGonagall was present as well. Dumbledore looked at Hermione with a grave expression on his face.
"Miss Granger, we had no notice of the attack that took place today. I'm very sorry." He said, looking very old.
Hermione was quiet for a very long time. "It's only a dream. It's all in my head."
"Miss Granger, this is no dream." Snape snarled.
Hermione squeezed her eyes shut. No, she would not listen. If this was someone's idea of a joke, then they were extremely perverted indeed. It was just a very cruel joke.
"Albus..." Professor McGonagall said worriedly.
"Miss Granger, the sooner you accept your parents' deaths the easier it will be on yourself and those around you. This – is – not – a - dream." Snape said, emphasising each word.
What if this wasn't a dream? Hermione realised. What if it was true? That her mother had actually died of some unknown disease yesterday, and her father had been killed today by some group of random Deatheaters. Tears flowed from Hermione's eyes. She would have woken up by now if this had been a dream. Professor McGonagall would not have participated in something so cruel.
Hermione fled the room. She ran to where she had wanted to go to before—outside. Hermione sat on the bank of the Lake, just behind Hagrid's cabin, next to the Forbidden Forest. There, she cried and grieved for her parents' deaths. The memories flooded back to her. All the good times mixed in with occasional dark glimpses of the past. She felt a poignant pang of regret when she realised that she had not even said 'I love you' to them for as long as she could remember. Like everyone else, she had believed that she had plenty of time later to deal with those minor details.
"If only…" Hermione sobbed.
Saying 'if only's was useless. It had happened, and there was nothing she could do about it. Hermione gradually stopped crying, knowing that her parents would disapproved, and slowly gathered her wits about her. She wiped her tears away and gulped in large amounts of fresh air to clear her fogged mind. That was when she noticed movement by the trees.
She blinked, unsure whether she had just imagined it. There was a faint rustling sound in the brush closest to the forest border.
She pulled out her wand and approached the edge of the forest.
